THE PROBLEM

You need 50 hours of CPD every year

Even before the recent CPD changes, education took you away from your family.

And now it's 50 hours a year for the rest of your career!

Of course some people will love the excuse to spend LESS time with their family,

But if you are reading this, it's probably not you, right?

If you invest 5 minutes reading this page, I will show you some strategies used by "highly efficient learners" to learn more in a shorter time than you probably thought possible.

I will also show you how to carve even more time away from CPD to enjoy more quality time with your family.

With these four, easy to implement strategies, you will see how your colleagues easily and effortlessly stay up to date.

You'll discover how you can make some simple changes that will fulfil your CPD needs AND give you back more time with the people you love.

Yes, It Really Is Possible!

I know you are probably a little sceptical, so I want you to join with me and perform a little experiment.

(It's easy and won't cost you a cent:)

It is important that you experience these ideas for yourself.

Please take a minute or two and download the free ArmchairMedical app from the App Store by clicking on these links

Apple IOS https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id1087154093

Google Play https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=tv.vhx.armchairmedical&pli=1

Or scan the appropriate QR code below

THE SOLUTION, PART 2

Four Strategies To Give You More Time Doing What You Love

Don't let the simplicity of these tips fool you. Soon we'll use the ArmchairMedical App to experiment and see how powerful they become in your life. You can then use what you learn to judge every way you approach your education.

Strategy 1: Focus on learning what you REALLY want to learn

How many times has someone you know (maybe someone you know VERY well:) sat through a lecture at a conference "just because you are there and there's nothing else on"?

Remember when you've plodded through an awful CPD module "just because you needed to complete it to be allowed onto the next section".

Maybe you were watching a webinar and the first 30+ minutes was just the set up rehashing what you already knew?

When you are forced to watch boring lectures or plough through modules you don't need, then over the course of your career you are potentially wasting weeks of your life.

It's time you can not get back and I bet you didn't learn much sacrificing your time like that anyway, did you?

There's nothing you can do about the past, but adopt this one strategy now and because of the new 50 hour CPD program, this small change will have an exponential impact and will save you at least a day this year alone!

"Adult learners learn best when they are learning what they are interested in learning."

Strategy 2: Avoid Time Wasters that add little or no educational value but keep you away from your family

In the past it was necessary to exchange time with your family for learning, but many traditional CPD activities also forced you to exchange time with your family for something close to worthless.

They'd sneak in time wasters that seem essential only because you have no alternative.

A typical conference provides 6 hours of education per day, however it may cost you 10 or more hours away from your family to get it.

30 - 40 minutes commuting time,  morning and afternoon tea, an hour for lunch.

It all adds up and it adds three or four hours per day to the time you are away from your family.

Now, due to the wonders of new technology, it's time you no longer need to waste.

Protip: Almost every live event is recorded. If you wait for the recordings, you don't need to travel, you don't need lunch and tea breaks and you can often play the recordings at speeds faster than real life. Unless there are benefits in attending live (like associating with like minded individuals) purchase the virtual ticket to conferences and wait for the recordings!

Which brings us to Tip 3.

Strategy 3: Choose learning materials that encourage you learning faster than normal

Podcasts and pre-recorded conferences allow you to alter the playback speed to suit you.

1x and learn at the same pace as in real life

1.5x and you save 20 minutes for every hour you learn

2x and it only takes 30 minutes to learn what other people take an hour to do.

Protip: Guard your time and consider how you can access recordings rather than watching events live.

Strategy 4: Choose when you learn, deliberately

During your week there are naturally times when it is important to be with your family and other times when you can safely multitask and incorporate learning without it taking time away from anything important.

For example, if you have young children, then dinner, bath time and bed time are fixed. If you schedule CPD for those times then you've missed that part of their lives.

It's the same with weekend conferences held at holiday destinations. If you schedule daylight hours for CPD, then your family go to the beach or theme parks without you. 

However, your daily commute to work or a walk around the neighbourhood after dinner can incorporate listening to a podcast.

When you exercise on stationary bikes, treadmills or elliptical trainers you can watch pre-recorded conference lectures while get your 30 minutes of exercise per day.

(GPs who do this for 6 days @ 2x normal playback speed will watch an entire single day conference every week.)

Going overseas on a holiday? A 6 hour plane journey can provide the same education opportunity as a two day conference, allowing you to focus 100% on your holiday once you arrive.

Simply choosing "family friendly" times to learn will give you more time with your family, even though you are still allocating appropriate time for learning.

BONUS Strategy 5: Choose CPD you can design yourself.

Traditional CPD was designed to provide education for the largest possible number of GPs and so it tended to be aimed at the 'average' GP. 

It was created after a 'needs assessment', which meant only topics that had a large potential impact across all or most GPs were generally created. 

A counterexample is topics that would appeal to 1% of GPs tended not to get made.

Of course this was necessary compromise a decade or more ago when it cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to create 'CPD' and so to be economically viable it needed to be useful for as large a number of people as possible.

Now, in the digital age, where you can hyper-individualise your own education in minutes, it is no longer 'best practice'.

It's now possible (and some would say preferable) to create CPD that exactly matches the needs of an audience of just one person (you).

So if you don't have exactly the same needs and life experiences as the 'average GP', then traditionally created CPD may not be the best use of your time.

Practically, this means that if you don't want to potentially waste your time following someone else's agenda and if you want to learn exactly what you need, then you should design it yourself.

Protip: The 2023-2025 RACGP & ACRRM CPD programs allow you to design your entire CPD activities for each year, so you can learn exactly what you want to learn without following someone else's agenda.

THE SOLUTION, PART 3 PRACTICAL APPLICATION

Now it is time to experiment and see how these strategies work in your life

Children grow up so quickly, as the results of experiment are revealed to you, imagine how many extra dinners and holidays you'll have with them over the course of your career

Open the ArmchairMedical App, navigate to the Sudden Cardiac Arrest 2025 Conference and choose a lecture that you are interested in.

Learn to alter the playback speed in the app so you can 'consume it' at the appropriate speed for your needs.

Now think of a time over the next 24 hours when you are commuting or exercising and make a plan to listen or watch that lecture when you do.

Set a mental trigger to remind you.

Maybe it's getting in the car that reminds you to connect your phone to your car radio so you can listen to the lecture on the way out?

Maybe it's putting on your exercise gear reminding you to get your headphones so you can watch and listen once you get on the exercise equipment?

Maybe it's packing your passport for an upcoming holiday reminding you to download some lectures to your phone so you can watch them "offline" when you are at 30,000 feet?

ProTip: When initially choosing a playback speed, start at 1.25x. Over a few weeks your brain will adapt to the tempo and you can begin increasing the speed. If you find you miss something, use the "back button" to jump back in 10 second increments or pause the video to examine the details on the slide.